“There, there; don't you go for to excite yourself,” said the woman, soothingly. “But I s'pose you can't help it.”
“So this is a mad-house, is it?” said Lady Dudleigh, gloomily, after a pause.
“Well, 'm, we don't call it that; we call it a 'sylum. It's Dr. Morton's 'sylum.”
“Now see here,” said Lady Dudleigh, making a fresh effort, and trying to be as cool as possible, “I am Lady Dudleigh. I have been brought here by a trick. Dr. Morton is deceived. He is committing a crime in detaining me. I am not mad. Look at me. Judge for yourself. Look at me, and say, do I look like a madwoman?”
The woman, thus appealed to, good-naturedly acquiesced, and looked at Lady Dudleigh.
“'Deed,” she remarked, “ye look as though ye've had a deal of sufferin' afore ye came here, an' I don't wonder yer mind give way.”
“Do I look like a madwoman?” repeated Lady Dudleigh, with a sense of intolerable irritation at this woman's stupidity.
“'Deed, then, an' I'm no judge. It's the doctor that decides.”
“But what do you say? Come, now.”
“Well, then, ye don't look very bad, exceptin' the glare an' glitter of the eyes of ye, an' yer fancies.”